(Miley Cyrus- Party in the USA)
Intermediate Lesson 10- Lobster
Our dish today was Lobster à la américaine served with a rice with raisins.
So the story of the américaine sauce was that there were some clients who went to a restaurant, and the chef had nothing but lobster and some garnishes for a mirepoix, so he made an ad-hoc dish by poaching the claws in a court bouillon, sautéing the lobster tail ,and using the juice from the lobster and coral as a base for the sauce. When I asked if the clients were Americans (hence the name américaine) Chef Poupard replied "I have no idea, maybe?" Great happy ending to the story chef.
Anyways, I'm really glad to have cooked a lobster. I've only prepared a lobster once years ago, and by "prepared" I mean my friend did all the work while I stood and watched. Lobster's one of my favorite things to eat and I'm very happy to learn how to handle onel. I picked a livelier one from our supply box because most of the other ones seemed dead and I wanted a good one.
My lobster in defense mode. Notice the curled up tail.
My group mate demonstrating how to quickly and
humanely end the life of a lobster
Sadly, I probably got too carried away, because I had some timing problems that led to my meat being cold when I served it to the chef. He commented on how the lobster should be more than room temperature, and how my claws were too dry by the time he tasted it. Really what I should do is right before serving throwing the lobster meat into the sauce to quickly warm them up and moist them. Also, he believed that I should serve with the lobster shell pointing downwards so the fleshy part (we cut out the bottom shell) could be exposed to make the life of our clients easier. Noted chef. Rice was cooked well though.
This is the first class when we finished early with almost an hour to spare. Coupled by the fact that this was morning class, and we had a one hour break before our 12:30pm class, this meant that we had a good 2 hours to rest. Unprecedented, and very much appreciated since today is another 4 class day. I went to a café outside of school that I frequented and had a cup of café au lait.
Right outside of the Vaugirard Metro station
Convenient, simple and perfect for people watching.
One class down and three more to go! For today.
Totally random fact: Lobster is one of two words that my mom knows in French, because it's my name with the W reversed. Howard > homard. The other french word she knows is "sale," which is soldes.
Quote for this class:
Chef Poupard: So to kill the lobster, just simply stab your lobster right here in the head, it'll die instantly. And then you can start taking its claws out.
Student: So is it dead dead?
Chef Poupard: Yes, but it might still look like it's a live because it'll still move.
Student: Eww! So isn't that inhumane to pull out its claws?
Chef Poupard: No because it's dead!
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